


Shadows

by probee



Category: NCIS
Genre: Episode: s16e13 She, Episode: s16e18 Mona Lisa, Gen, Ziva David is not dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18405302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probee/pseuds/probee
Summary: When it’s dark and stormy out, though, that is her favorite time. Then, the clouds cocoon her, and the gentle patter of the raindrops falling from the sky clear her mind, a gentle white noise to clean the slate and allow her to get to work.





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> I can't write plot, so this happened.

She’s been down this rabbit hole for months.

On sunny days, she goes for runs along the path by the Potomac through the park, ostensibly to clear her head. Yet if she’s truthful with herself, she does this to connect. To connect with her thoughts, with her instincts, with the puzzle pieces scattered in her mind begging to be whole again. 

To connect with _her_.

By running along these same trails, even when they’re out of the way from her own neighborhood, she feels like the roots beneath her feet will rise through the sod to grab hold of her ankles, and then, _then_ the answers she seeks will blossom in front of her very eyes. 

When it’s dark and stormy out, though, that is her favorite time. Then, the clouds cocoon her, and the gentle patter of the raindrops falling from the sky clear her mind, a gentle white noise to clean the slate and allow her to get to work. 

It is on these occasions that she instead retreats back to what is, for now, _their_ secret. Like her own private bunkhouse, only it isn’t really hers at all. However, she has been entrusted as its custodian for the time being, and she holds that honor dearly. She is the curator of this museum, and as with anything she has ever set her mind to, she is determined to become an expert in the matter, through gumption and grit and a little bit of osmosis.

It is on this misty Saturday afternoon, then, that she finds herself back inside the makeshift cottage, curled up cross-legged on the futon with her tea in one hand and a journal in the other. It still feels invasive, reading through a stranger’s innermost reflections like this, but she knows that this needs to be done. Part of her dreams that the subject of this particular investigation even approves of her actions, as though she’s been allowed inside an exclusive club, but she needs to solve the riddle to make it past the final sentry. But she is nothing if not persistent, and there isn’t a challenge Eleanor Bishop won’t meet.

And so it goes. When she is feeling particularly broody, she shuts the world out by holing up in this secret garden of hers, away from the bustle. In fact, she makes a conscious effort to do so as soon as she steps foot through that door; the only piece of technology she allows herself in here is her phone (occupational hazard), but even that is set to minimal notifications, because she takes this time to just _be_. 

The longer she stays here, the more she is convinced that that is exactly why _she_ came here, too. Why a professional woman with a state-of-the-art workplace and a comfortable home would feel the need to rent out a glorified shed as a personal office baffled the agent at first, but Ellie too is a trained analyst, and she recognizes patterns as they emerge before her. While the structure could be claustrophobic for some, the wood-panelled walls and antique secretary’s desk remind her of hours spent cramming at the library in her college years, and that soothes her soul as she gets down to business. 

She’d heard fables from her friends about their former colleague’s exploits, about safe houses and surveillance and armories fit for any doomsday prepper, but this is an entirely different space. Save for a handful of weapons (because old habits die hard), this place is almost the antithesis to spy craft. No computers, no televisions, not even a radio grace these humble walls. The refuge remains in stasis as time marches on outside.

In studying this abode, she’s reached the conclusion that this is precisely why her subject wrote her notes by hand, tome after tome revealing the winding tale of empty promises, broken hearts and shattered lives. But also the stories of rebirth and renewal, of hope and strength. The physical act of unraveling these tangled threads within her psyche by hand, putting pen to paper to divulge her unspoken truths without the distraction of her surroundings, is as simple as it is cathartic. And as Ellie parses through these books, she feels growing kinship with the woman, despite their wildly different upbringings and journeys to their shared career. 

She’s taken by the author’s candor about her cases and about herself, and the reader understands instinctively that this is no small feat. That precious few were ever privy to these confessions — not even the people about whom she wrote. (That, heartbreakingly, one in particular never learned that she was as lost without him as he was without her, even when they were inches apart.) She’s long since decided that confidential these shall remain, at least for the time being, since this is not her choice to make. Yet being here, in the same room where years prior another young agent bared her soul to the only voice who would listen, she feels enveloped in an invisible coil that refuses to release its hold on her. 

Nonetheless, the need to uncover the _whys_ consumes her as always, so she sits and reads and thinks on the increasingly rare chances she has to escape one inquiry for another. She knows that there is no way this office’s former occupant would remain separated from the people she loves for so long without a good reason, and she intends on protecting her anonymity at all costs. But something niggles at her as the weeks pass, and she wonders if perhaps her own expertise might help her counterpart come out of the shadows at long last. 

It starts innocently enough, a few innocuous questions here, a phone call there, anything to get a handle on what kind of chatter might be of value, and what could have driven a young mother underground under such dire circumstances. Unsurprisingly, few sources are forthcoming, and Ellie realizes that the need to remain mum on the truth is proving more difficult than she’d imagined. Especially when she cannot turn a corner without running into someone who knew Ziva, by reputation if not by acquaintance, and each encounter reminds her that _she is dead_ , at least as far as the world is concerned. 

(As far as her boss is concerned is another matter. She suspects immediately that Vance is aware of something — had to have been aware of something from the moment the director of Mossad showed up on their doorstep with a toddler in tow. Gibbs, now that is another story. On the one hand, she has witnessed his quiet grief from the moment they met. On the other, she cannot fathom that he wouldn’t follow his own rule and double-check what he’s been told.)

She meditates on these revelations bit by bit here in the solace of this room, surrounded by the memory of a person she’s never met, yet still she senses her presence in the space, as though she is a spectre just beyond her reach. In the meantime, she pieces together the last years of Ziva’s life before _the incident_ as she has come to call it, attempting to figure out how someone who had adamantly abandoned a life of crimefighting apparently ended up back in the trenches of intelligence warfare. Or why she’d insist on living life so alone, when there would be such a simple solution to that particular predicament. (She supposes this is the tragedy of the human condition, how two people so clearly devoted to one another could never share their hearts’ desires.) It is a herculean task, but one day her worlds collide in fortuitous happenstance, and the ball gets rolling for real.

Because it’s all about the money. (If that’s not a rule, it should be.) In this instance, money trails lead to secret slush funds which lead to even-more-secret purveyors of the slush funds, which leads to alliances formed and dissolved and corruption from the top down. If one thing is consistent throughout history, it’s that those with power will do anything to keep it, and those who seek to stop them will pay the price. Somehow, she is certain that Ziva’s current state is a result of this web she’s discovered woven across the globe. It’s almost as though the answer has been under her nose the whole time, but she can’t shake the feeling that she’s missing a clue that will tie this all together. So she sits and she festers and still, the answers don’t come.

Until they do.

She’s studied the numbers on the bank drafts, who’s sent what where and why, and the regular schedule of unscrupulousness would disgust her if it weren’t so typical. But the deposits into one particular Swiss account strike her, only because of when they stop in January 2013, and when the withdrawals eventually begin in May of 2016. Her spidey senses tingle, and though it may all be a coincidence, she knows better than to settle and believes she’s hit pay dirt, because her experience tells her that she is certain who can answer her questions.

Which is why she finds herself frantically knocking on a door late one night, delirious with exhaustion and a mind whirring full of ideas she can’t classify at this hour, but as sure as anything she’s ever felt in her life.

“Bishop?!”

Her bleary-eyed host wonders if he may be suffering a fever dream, so unexpected is her arrival.

“I have some questions, Tony. And I’m pretty sure you can answer them.”

He cracks the door open wide enough to invite her in.

“I’ve got one for you, Bishop,” he counters as she strolls past him into his living room, “what the hell are you doing at my apartment _in Paris_ in the middle of the night?!”

He has no idea what she’s talking about, but he recognizes the look in her eyes. This is full-scale _Beautiful Mind_ Bishop, and the best he can do is to stay out of her way.

“I’m sorry, I know I should have called first. I didn’t mean to wake you or Tali. I didn’t wake her, did I?”

“No, you didn’t, but if you do, you have to put her back to bed, and I’m warning you, she’s stubborn as a mule and she’s going through a mouthy phase right now, so good luck with _that_.”

She purses her lips and puffs her cheeks, which he knows means she’s stalling.

“Out with it, Bishop. Why are you here?”

“It’s about Ziva.”

He goes ramrod straight and she can swear she sees the color drain out of his face.

“What about her?”

“Why haven’t you been back to DC since she… since you left?”

“Bishop…”

She stares him down. 

“You haven’t visited, not once. You always say you’re going to, that you’re going to stay in touch, that Tali needs to connect with her family here… But it’s been almost three years now, Tony.”

“Ellie, it’s just life. Tali’s got a routine with preschool and dance class and swimming, and have I mentioned she’s a bullheaded pain in the ass sometimes? Come on, Bishop, you really flew four thousand miles just to call me out on being a crappy pen pal?”

“That’s BS and you know it. You’ve been evasive any time push comes to shove. Hell, you missed McGee’s wedding!”

“It’s not my fault McEager nixed his nuptials and decided to get hitched at the spur of the moment _in my old apartment_ I might add!”

She doesn’t flinch.

“Seriously, Bishop, it’s almost midnight, and frankly I’m a little annoyed at the moment that you apparently came all this way just to argue about my communication skills. So why are you here?” There's an edge to his voice and she briefly regrets ambushing him like this, but she has no other choice.

“There’s been an off-books investigation into SecNav’s dirty money. Tony, this goes into every single major government and intelligence agency in the world. Including Mossad.”

It’s his turn to clench his teeth and go steel-eyed. He crosses his arms and sits on the armrest of the sofa behind him.

“Your point?”

“I know Ziva started working for them again after she moved back to Israel.”

A pause.

“So?”

“I also know that one of her father’s accounts was syphoning money from one of the ministers we’re investigating, which stopped as soon as he died. And that that account suddenly reactivated three years later.”

“Do we really have to do this n—“

“But most of all, I know _you_. I know that you probably figured this all out years ago. And that you must have had some sort of lead about the connection to the David family or else you wouldn’t have stayed here so long. Away from us. There’s only one reason you would pick up and move to the other side of the Atlantic without any other family or career or plan…”

“ _Bishop_ …”

The young woman before her takes a deep breath, summoning up the courage to lay her cards on the table.

“Tony, I need to know. This is way bigger than any of us put together. What was Ziva working on before the fire? What did she discover that was worth killing her over?”

He considers her for a beat, but finally lets out a sigh before speaking up.

“Well, why don’t you ask her yourself?”

He turns his gaze behind them, and she abruptly notices a figure lurking in the shadows in the adjoining dining room, gently padding its way towards them until it leans against the archway separating the two spaces and emerges into the soft light. Ellie’s eyes widen and her jaw drops, and for a fleeting moment she wonders if her sleep deprivation may in fact be causing her to hallucinate. 

“Agent Bishop, we meet at last. I have heard so much about you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The ending of this story has been stuck in my head since "She" aired. I just had to figure out a way to get to that point. Unfortunately that came at the expense of, you know, plot or editing or a point in general, but I wanted to get this out of the way before canon makes it irrelevant.


End file.
